Misguided Status-Seeking (Food Division)

Why do people order super-size portions of French fries? To move themselves up the societal pecking order, according to a new study, summarized here by Jonah Lehrer.

Shockingly, the strategy backfires. It turns out packing in massive amounts of food, while arguably analogous, psychologically, to buying 70-inch plasma TV’s or multiple SUV’s leads only to “a sad feedback loop of obesity.”